


Time Implies The Possibility

by Kryptontease



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Middle Ages, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Time Travel, Timey-Wimey Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26175001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kryptontease/pseuds/Kryptontease
Summary: When a time portal strands Stephen Strange in 1272, he's not about to find himself hanging for the charge of sorcery.
Relationships: Cloak of Levitation & Stephen Strange, Tony Stark/Stephen Strange
Comments: 4
Kudos: 40
Collections: Short August Medieval Exchange 2020





	Time Implies The Possibility

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miri Cleo (miri_cleo)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miri_cleo/gifts).



A curious sensation crept into Stephen Strange's heart as his eyes followed the S.H.E.I.L.D. agent who had been assigned to brief him. She walked towards the supervising Damage Control agent--most likely to receive her final confirmation that Stephen was to be trusted with information in whatever color-scheme clearance S.H.E.I.L.D. was using these days--but his attention was drawn beyond that. A hive of activity had sprung up on the gentle grassy hills of Salisbury Plain; technicians in heavy coats scurried around a hastily erected perimeter and a stream of agents buzzed between drab gray military-style tents that had been set up in considered haste. Everyone seemed to ignore the line of "DANGER: UNEXPLODED ORDNANCE" signs that marked the nearest turn-out. 

Beyond the stanchions and Stark Industries monitoring equipment, a singular mote of light warped the space around it like the lens of a black hole. 

It wasn't the activity or the mote of light that caused that jutter in Stephen Strange's heart; it was a sense of familiarity that he couldn't shake.

Stephen centered himself. With an exhale of his breath, he blinked open his third eye. He peeled back the layers of nonvisible spectrum as he peered through the layers of perception. The spiritual, the astral, and the magical planes flickered past. There wasn't so much as a ripple at the center of this S.H.I.E.L.D. circus. 

He blinked back to normal vision. 

For a split second, Stephen saw the anomaly stretch away like a rainbow-ringed tube that connected this world to something else; but the tunnel faded as quickly as he saw it, and Stephen was left with a conundrum: _what kind of tunnel is invisible to the eye, that is neither spiritual, astral, or magical?_

The surface of the anomaly rippled as he watched it, setting off a series of increasingly urgent alarms. An uncanny feeling gripped Stephen and the hair on the back of his neck prickled. A feeling dogged him, whenever he made eye contact with the singular point of light: it was achingly familiar. 

He held out his hand to direct the Cloak of Levitation to him. The cloak whipped through air and fitted itself around his shoulders. Together they stepped forward into the buzz of Salisbury, and allowed the portal to the New York Sanctum to fully close behind them. 

This situation was urgent enough to leave without so much as a word to Wong. The Sanctum Sanctorum's defensive incantations could be finished without him. With any luck, the trip would be short and they'd laugh about how they could set a clock by Stephen's encounters with the end of the world.

. + # + .

A sorcerer seemed out-of-place amid the high-tech atmosphere of the Damage Control site, but Stephen had become accustomed to the incongruity. Conversation streamed around him, the kind of mild chatter of a crew whose initial enthusiasm had been dampened by long stretches of inactivity.

Stephen grabbed a tech, and arrested her from her beeline between seismometers. "How long has this mote been active?"

The tech stared up at him blearily. "Three days?" Stephen let her slip back into her path. He walked around the perimeter of the anomaly, and listened to the conversation shift around him. 

"...we're getting all kinds of readings from... There's no way to tell _what_ whatever this is..." 

The S.H.E.I.L.D. agent returned and gave him a tight smile. "You're making the techs nervous. Quit _prowling._ You've been granted Level Blue Clearance. Our next site briefing will be held at 0800 hours. That's 15 minutes from now."

"Wonderful," Stephen murmured, as he motioned towards the anomaly. "But I don't think your problem is going to wait fifteen minutes."

The mote of light convulsed. The lensing bubbled outward. The agents were quick enough on their feet to wrestle the lab techs who froze up out of the expanding event horizon, but the perimeter equipment disappeared into the mirrorglass surface with only the faintest _twinnnng_. 

"Get everyone back! At least 400 meters!" The agent shouted, grabbing shoulders indiscriminately, and shoving techs into an outright run. 

As a curtain of rainbow light descended, Stephen Strange stepped forward. He drew his incantation on the fragile surface of the world. Energy rushed towards him to activate his shields...

...and that was the _absolutely wrong thing to have done_. The anomaly surged forward with the flow of energy and Stephen had only enough time to surround himself in a bubble of protective energy when the anomaly washed over him and submerged him into the currents between reality. As unreal winds buffeted Stephen's shields, he watched reality collapse into kaleidoscopic fragments. At least he understood now what he had seen on the plain of Salisbury: a untempered schism in time. 

Without the Time Stone, Stephen was helpless to steer himself through the currents of time. But--there might just be--a way to give himself a soft landing. He drew his barrier close to his body and then flared it out like a balloon. The shield crashed into fragments of time and the anomaly exploded into color.

Stephen was thrown sickenly forward against his barrier. The Cloak of levitation shielded him as best it could as the time tunnel shattered and they landed hard against a surface--a wooden padlock--and rolled through fresh hay mixed with straw. 

Stephen rolled to his feet. Or would have. If he could just find the right footing in the grass. 

Since training at Kamar-taj, Stephen had been able to move his body like it was lighter than the mass that bone and muscle and sinew made up. Not today, apparently. The fall through time had winded him. He leaned against the wooden gate, and felt the crushing weight of gravity as he pushed himself upright with his elbow. Not his best landing, but it was fine. How often did a sorcerer survive an untempered schism in time? As far as he was aware--there had been no record of one--because for the length and breadth of recorded time, the Time Stone had existed on Earth, and no schmatic time had ever been encountered without the help of the Eye of Agamotto. 

Right. Yes. His first order of business: get his bearings.

Stephen raised his arms and took in the state of his robes. 

His first order of business: clean himself up a bit, then find a local to help him get his bearings.

Errant straw clung to his sleeves. He looked like he'd slept in one of the horse stalls. He tried to swipe away the dried chaff, but his hands shook. When he tried to straighten out his fingers, white hot agony lanced through his metacarpals into his proximal phalanges. 

He gazed around blearily. The time-anomaly had sat in the middle of a grassy plain in Salisbury; where they were now _felt_ similar, same rolling grass plains in a deeper shade of green--

"Salisbury, but… " As far as he could see, stalls and wooden paddocks and shop tables and work benches had been erected, and horses, goats, sheep, and cattle had filled the stalls as artisans prepared their tools for a new day of work. "--some kind of fair? I thought that this had been a munitions test range for at least a hundred years." 

Which was fine. A hundred years ago was fine. All he'd had to do is reach the London Sanctum, which had stood as a beacon against the Dark Dimension for five hundred years, and he could find his way forward in time... 

"Help me, will you?" Stephen groused as he wiped some mud that had crusted onto his cheek. 

The Cloak of levitation pulled him into a fully upright position. Stephen awkwardly waved at a passing artisan--blacksmith in a heavy apron, by the looks of it--who gave Stephen the queerest expression as the Cloak gently patted the remaining straw from Stephen's sleeves. Without a word, he crossed himself and hurried past. 

"Thanks," Stephen said quietly to the cloak. He scrutinized his hands. They were gnarled and useless now that magic wasn't channeling through them to hold his fractured bones together.

His eyes drifted closed. The state of his hands didn't matter. He held his mind firm and felt the shape of the spell he needed in his mind. Locator spell. The eight-point compass. The cross-section of a triangle revolved around four-dimensional axes. Stephen felt the geometry spring to life, and held up his wrists to draw the lines of power; together, his hands and his heart joined the sacred geometry. The song of the universe bloomed into his mind, and in moments, so too would the knowledge of his location, but... 

The song crescendoed and faded; nothing came of it.

Nothing came of attempts two, three, four, and five.

Stephen blinked his eyes open. "I'm sure this is no cause for concern, but it seems that my magic doesn't work here. It looks like we're stuck with good ol' fashioned legwork."

. + # + .

They had definitely landed smack in the middle of a crafts fair of some kind. Sheep fleeces were piled to tremendous heights, and row after row of spinners worked hand spindles. The rows of stalls petered out as they reached a high wooden wall that enclosed part of the field. Trees poked their branches over the wall at regular intervals. Stephen patted the Cloak and they vaulted to the top of the structure. He caught hold of a sturdy branch and steadied himself on the parapet.

What he saw within was a teeming city. Heavy oak gates that admitted traffic into the walled commercial district, where houses were built up in a half-timber style--top floors jettying out into the street and hunched over the foot-traffic like creaking giants. It felt marked similar to the cramped quarters of the Shambles in York, where Stephen was often obliged to purchase the antiquarian occult texts that Wong required. A Roman road cut through the center of the town. The radiating streets that cut through the town in no logical pattern weren't paved. The dirt roads were churned up into mud by the animals that were led through the streets out to the fair. Men and women opened their stalls and set out their daily trade in kirtles and gowns and surcoats. Stephen felt at a loss. History had never been an important subject to him prior to Kamar-Taj, but he'd seen plenty of movies. They couldn't be any sooner than 1300. Which meant the London Sanctum wouldn't exist for another two hundred years, at best. Where he was, was _screwed_.

Stephen's mind reeled. As the term was commonly understood, Stephen had never _travelled in time_ before. He'd used the Time Stone to peer into possible futures, calcified pasts, and on one occasion, to screw over a cosmic being of unfathomable power. He had dallied with time, but he hadn't ever been thrown out of it like a fare-dodger. 

He needed to _think_. 

Surely a strategy would present itself to him momentarily…

...if a voice hadn't bellowed at the top of his lungs, "There's the sorcerer! I saw him in the stalls bewitching the sheep!" 

Stephen whirled on his heels and caught sight of the blacksmith he'd encountered, pointing up at Stephen on the wall with a shaky, accusing finger. He wasn't alone either. Other artisans gathered around the blacksmith with their tools in hand--hammers, tongs, bellows, spindles, and rakes. The wall he stood on was high enough to keep even his ankles out of arm's reach of the agitated throng, but Stephen knew just how quickly a hammer could become a projectile. 

"The friendly people of--" Stephen trailed off. "What's the name of your town?"

The blacksmith stepped forward from the crowd, and jabbed his hammer up at Stephen menacingly. "Delhaven!" 

"Ah! The friendly people of Delhaven. It is good to make your acquaintance...all of your acquaintances...so rapidly."

"Is that all you have to say for yourself?" The blacksmith jeered.

"Would it help if I said 'you've got the wrong man'."

"Look at that funny blue tunic. Ain't seen nothing like that before! If you're not a sorcerer, what else could you be?"

"A traveling minstrel?" Stephen tried hopefully. 

"Get him!" The blacksmith screamed. 

"Time to fly," Stephen mumbled. 

The Cloak took off like a shot. Shock and disbelief erupted in his wake, and Stephen could hear cries of Spread out! Don't let him escape! whip the crowd into a frenzy. The Cloak veered towards the city, but Stephen steered them back over the thatch-and-tile rooftops, out towards Salisbury Plain. They needed a plan, and they needed to return home. Stephen could feel in his bones that the city had nothing of interest for them. The anomaly had opened on the plain; the enormous open-air fair had to have some trace of the tunnel's passage. 

"Let's find a place to set down." Stephen skimmed through a makeshift barn and set the chickens off squawking in all directions. "I'm not particularly interested in getting hanged today." 

They approached a large two-storey structure set off from the periphery of the fair. The construction was new enough that no moss had grown up around the half-timbered latticework. A wooden sign hung over the entrance. There was a colorful painting of a goose rampant wearing a crown. A temporary inn to feed & house the influx of seasonal tradesmen and crafters, if Stephen had to guess. Stephen pulled up on the Cloak. They slowed, and alighted on the roof. Stephen crept his way to the edge, and with some help, slid down the heavy timbers that framed the corner of the building. He stopped just far enough down to reach across, unfasten a window, and slip into the second story of the inn. 

The window let into an inn room that Stephen would describe as Spartan: a bed, a rug, a stool and an armoire made up the entire contents of the accommodations. There wasn't even a rug thrown across the floorboards; neither were there any curtains on the windows. No one but an artisan who had to be up with the sun would find this stay hospitable. Even Kamar-Taj had mirrors, and candles, and the warm touch of art lingering in its more austere corners.

Stephen threw himself on the bed and panted for breath as he listened for someone to send up the alarm. He yanked off the Cloak, and nodded at it; sightless though it may be, it understood Stephen's nonverbal gestures, and slipped out the window to take measure of the perimeter. As the minutes passed and no one charged up to the inn or burst into the room or renewed the cry of _Sorcerer, seize him!_ , Stephen relaxed. 

At least until the door to the room opened with a burst of laughter and the clink of mugs, and Stephen heard a voice that caused his heart to skip a beat.

"My room is already taken. Do you hear me? Am I being unclear? **my room is already taken**! Three's a crowd, so you can go. Take your ale and piss off."

Stephen sat up on the bed. He didn't have any words for this. 

A very alive Tony Stark stood on the threshold of the room, mug in hand, foam spilling down his knuckles, in what appeared to be passable Medieval surcoat and trousers, a belt cinched around his waist. Nothing glowed on his sternum; no familiar outline of the arc reactor broke the line of his surcoat on his chest. Tony cocked an eyebrow at Stephen, pursed his lips, and then took what seemed to be a measured risk and closed the door behind him. 

This weird vision of Tony squared off with Stephen. 

"Who are you, and what are you doing in my chamber? The chamber that I paid for, and was going to spend a relaxing and recreational hour with my friend Greg or Gregory or whomever?"

"Stephen," he paused. When the name had no effect, he added: "Strange." 

"Granted, but your whole _you_ is bizarre. Those robes will get you hanged around here." 

Stephen licked his lips. He was going to let that one go. 

"Are you local?" Stephen questioned. 

The uncanny vision of Tony Stark raised his mug and toasted him. "You could say that. Born and raised in Westmore." 

"I find that unlikely. Since when was 'piss off' a 13th century colloquialism?"

A thought crossed his mind and Stephen felt bitterness crowd into him. Time travel wasn't so terribly far-fetched. Stranding himself in the 13th century was par for the course for a Sorcerer Supreme, but this? Stephen had made enemies who would love nothing more than to salt this particular wound-- 

(It hadn't been more than three months since the funeral. It hadn't been more than a month since Stephen's last visit to the grave.)

He had to be certain. 

Stephen smiled tightly, and then slapped Tony full across the face. Stephen bit out an anguished cry and curled up involuntarily around his injured hand. "So I'm not dreaming. That's a relief," Stephen muttered.

"Excuse you." Tony reached out and grabbed Stephen's face, and pulled it this way and that, inspecting him. Stephen's cheeks ached under the none-to-gentle handling. Reluctantly, Tony released his grip. "You seem real too. I guess I'm not dreaming either. What's happening here?"

"My best guess?"

"Your best guess as a practitioner of the dark arts, yes."

"You're a time remnant," Stephen said at last. "Tony Stark used the Time Stone to defeat Thanos. but it technically wasn't our Time Stone. It was another universe's. Displacing it from its original timeline and using it in ours could very well could have introduced errors in the timeline." 

"Errors," Tony said flatly.

"Echoes," Stephen corrected, in a tone gentle enough to surprise himself. " _You_ , and others like you. Copies of Tony Stark that have been spread throughout time." 

Tony narrowed his eyes at Stephen and rounded the bed. It had the double-effect of putting space between them, but it forced Stephen to look across the bed to keep his eyes on the uncanny vision in front of him. Stephen felt the back of his neck burning. "I've never heard of magic that powerful. If you ask me, this all sounds fake. If you want to spend the hour with me, you could say so."

Tony's flirting was just as terrible as Stephen remembered it. His mind flickered back to how they had sized each other up on Ebony Maw's ship--their aim to tear each other down just as much as it was to outmatch the other. 

"Tell me who you are, then."

"Anthony of St. Albans. After the saint," he said. "My good friends, who've had the displeasure to dispute with me, call me Tony Starck. Starck, with a silent 'c', which I can tell you're not saying." 

"Tony," Stephen said softly. "How long have you been here in Delhaven?"

Tony drained the mug, and tossed it aside. He glared at Stephen.

"Please. Indulge me."

Tony puffed out his chest. "Three days. I brought my sheep to the Fleece Fair. They took first prize, I'll thank you to know."

"I know why I'm here." A woosh of cool air from the window prickled on the back of his neck, and Tony's eyes went wide. Stephen jerked his head toward Tony. "You're not going to like this." 

The Cloak zipped from the window and wrapped around Tony. He struggled against the cloth for a minute, and then went limp. 

"Take him down to the sheep stalls. Where we landed."

The Cloak seemed--dubious. 

(And for his part, Stephen tried and failed not to think too closely about how he could suss out cloth-based emotions.)

"Glad you asked," Stephen said as he uncinched his belt and shed his outer robe. "While you're sneaking Mr. Starck into the fair, I'm going to find myself an era-appropriate disguise."

. + # + .

A church bell tolled the hour twice before Stephen found a suitable disguise in one of the other guest rooms. A light yellow surcoat and a wide-brimmed pilgrim hat. Stephen regretted that neck coverings weren't common; something he could pull up over his face would have let him mingle in the fair without fear of being spotted by any of the angry artisans who had seen him take flight. A sham trial and a quick hanging were off Stephen's agenda for the day. By the time he'd met up with the Cloak, who had dragged Tony back into an empty and well-shaded stall, it was just gone noon.

Tony was awake and glaring daggers at Stephen, but he wasn't struggling and he wasn't yelling. The Cloak restrained Tony lightly, but it seemed that Tony's curiosity more than anything else kept him compliant. 

A man sauntered up to Stephen, and Stephen quickly motioned the Cloak to withdraw. The man wore thick artisan coveralls, and had a wide, pleasant, familiar face. Stephen had kept out of eyesight in the inn while he slipped from room to room, pilfering clothes...and he hadn't stopped to chat with any locals at the tavern...which meant: this man had been a part of the mob at the city wall. 

"Ho! What's your business here, friend?" 

Stephen shrank back into whatever shadow the stall roof could afford him. He had never been terribly good at lying. Weaponizing the truth: yes. Making others regret even asking a question: absolutely yes. Lying? He'd only managed to fool Wong as the keeper of the library, very briefly, because Wong had been more keen on reshelving books and hurrying on with his other duties than interrogating an acolyte with an armful of returned tomes. 

Stephen assumed a pious air. "I'm a pilgrim looking to purchase a sheep."

The interloper leaned against the gate and peered up under Stephen's broad-brimmed hat. Which wasn't all that difficult; Stephen towered over most of the locals. Stephen canted his head down to disguise the shape of his jaw. 

That earned Stephen a puzzled scratch of the chin. "You look familiar. Are you a Salisbury lad?"

"No. I'm from… the West. Just passing through on my way to London." That one was easy enough; it was true. The London Sanctum was his best and closest destination; and New York was westerly from Salisbury plain. "I'm busy about my own affairs, if you don't mind." 

The man sucked on his teeth and threw an arm around his shoulders, falsely chummy. "Friend, the seller's gone to the inn. He won't be back 'til sunup tomorrow, if he's sober enough to roll out of whatever ditch he ends up in." 

Out of the corner of Stephen's eye, he could see Tony clench his fists. 

The interloper continued blithely: "Low quality fleece on these sheep. You'll regret the purchase within a fortnight. I'd be glad to sell you one of my lot."

Stephen could feel the heat rise in Tony's demeanor. He started towards them and then came up short as he grasped and clawed at the air like a cartoon character who'd become stuck on an invisible wall. The Cloak was implacably strong when it wished to be; and it seemed to relish slapping its fabric over Tony's mouth and dragging him to the back of the stall before he could give up the whole game.

"No…" Stephen drew out the syllable. "These will do fine." Stephen nodded at the yellow wooden wreath that had been affixed to Tony's empty seller's stall. "Anthony of St. Albans is said to raise prize-winning sheep. Who am I to argue? I'm sure he'll be along presently."

When the interloper tried to object, Stephen fixed him with a withering glare. "We're done here. Go about your business."

The man sluck off, muttering about the low manners of pilgrims, and Stephen ducked into the stall before anyone else could seize on him to sell him homespun fiber, or offer to resole his shoes. Tony's entire face transformed with ire. The Cloak muffled a stream of invective, but Stephen guessed that the theme of it was _that sheep seller can shove it where the sun doesn't shine._

"Will you run if we release you?"

Tony's eyebrows rose in disbelief. He shook his head sarcastically, if such a thing were possible. Stephen twirled his fingers, and the Cloak released its iron grip. 

"This is ravishment," Tony said as he muscled his way free of the Cloak. "Abduction and ravishment. If you wanted my company, you could have just asked. Though I would have preferred the inn. Gentler on the back." 

The apology was so soft, Tony had to strain forward to hear it. "I didn't know that time had made you more agreeable. I apologize. We couldn't risk you making a scene." 

Stephen sized up the surrounding booths from the cover of shadow. This was about where Stephen had been thrown from the time anomaly. 

(He could swear the imprint of his body was still pressed into the hay & straw strewn over the grassy aisle between stalls.)

He didn't know what he expected, when he had formulated his theory about Anthony of St. Albans, his presence on Salisbury plain, and the time anomaly that had persisted for as long as Tony had been in Delhaven. When Stephen had approached the anomaly, the reaction had only taken minutes.

"Hmm." Stephen plucked at his lips in thought. "Maybe I was wrong."

A shoulder jostled him. And then another. Stephen turned to steady whomever had bumped into him. He saw a young man, no older than sixteen, covered in hay and backing away from him slowly--his eyes wild and unseeing.

"I mean you no harm," Stephen said, as he offered his hand to help the boy to his feet, but the young man didn't seem to hear him. His face was wild with terror as he crawled away from Stephen.

A scream rose from the fair-goers, and Stephen looked _up_. At the edge of the fair, a giant rainbow hole had opened; the maw was swift and raging and a mirrorglass bubble had formed on the event horizon. Time was devouring itself, and ramping itself up to take them all with it. 

Tony broke free from the stall, and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Stephen. He crossed himself. "The devil's stream," he muttered. "I thought it couldn't find me here."  
Stephen grabbed Tony's shoulders. "This has happened before?!" Tony just nodded, like it was the most normal thing in the world. "How did you stop it?"

"Prayer?" Tony paled as he looked at the chaos splitting the vault of the sky. "In truth, it may have just stopped on its own." 

Stephen swore. "I don't think that's going to be an option this time." 

He held out his hand. The Cloak shot into his grasp, and he swung it onto his shoulders. His fingers groaned in agony. With his magic shot, he was going to have to rely on Tony to be his hands. He couldn't compel Tony to do _this_ however. It had to be his choice. 

"Anthony of St. Albans, do you want to be a hero?"

"Not particularly." A beat passed between them, Tony's face impassive; and Stephen felt that strange frisson pass between them as they came to some kind of understanding with each other, just as it had been on Ebony Maw's ship. "Tell me what I need to do?"

. + # + .

And so it was Stephen Strange found himself upside-down halfway between a time-devouring void and a century he didn't belong in, anchoring himself and Tony at the edge of the dangerous and bottomless span that rumbled and gnashed its teeth beneath them. If anyone asked Stephen what their chances were to survive this, he could have given them even odds to live or die. It was fine though. Everything was well in hand. The Cloak held them steady as Stephen held Tony, and Tony reached across the span of the void to bridge the two halves.

 _Think of it like suturing a wound,_ Stephen had said.

 _I don't know what that means,_ Tony had protested. 

They moved across the void, inching the circumference of the tunnel together, and when Tony concentrated, and Stephen felt time flowing through Tony's hands through his body, into Stephen's hands on his waist, he felt the stiffness in his fingers ease. Stephen breathed through it, and channeled time through his body like a conduit. He directed the energy as best he could to a spot directly below them. The fair patrons who valued their life had fled behind the walls of Delhaven; and those who stayed outside of its walls kept well back from the churning horror of the schism. 

"How am I doing?" Tony yelled. 

"Outstanding," Stephen shouted. "I was sure we'd be torn apart by the force of time by now!"

"We were teammates, right? Something tells me that we got on each other's nerves." 

Stephen thought hard about anything other than where his hands were on Tony's body; or where they could have gone if he'd taken him up on his offer in the inn. "Something like that, yes."

. + # + .

Tony and Stephen moved the world, inch by inch, as the wheel in the sky ground the day to dust. The time tunnel had been reduced to a bare mote in the sky, with no width that Tony could bridge with his hands. The sutures that Tony had threaded together were holding.

Stephen could feel how his fingers had loosened up. He still couldn't channel magic through them here--he was probably out of sync, dimensionally speaking, but he could pull time through them to do the work that magic had previously done. 

They lay panting together in the grass. Tony tipped his chin up onto Stephen's shoulder, and Stephen let him. He watched Stephen flex his fingers; how they could bend without pain; how they could form the correct positions to summon a shield, or a magic whip, or a portal--

Tony's question startled him out of a chain of suppositions. "What will happen to the schism? Are we just going to leave it there?" 

"I think that's up to the schism," Stephen answered honestly.

Tony grabbed Stephen's chin and turned Stephen's face towards him. Laying on the grass, they were face to face; and such an easily bridgeable distance between them.

"You're a pretty powerful wizard, aren't you." 

Stephen snorted. "Ask me that again when I've gotten my magic back." 

Tony licked his lips, and then pressed forward into a kiss. Their lips were rough and wind-chapped, but Stephen enjoyed it anyway. He stroked Tony's cheek, and tried to deepen the kiss--but Tony pulled back and searched Stephen's face. "I spent a long time thinking about what we were doing today. A tunnel through time implies the possibility of movement in either direction. I could come with you. We figure out how to move through the tunnel without flattening the world, and we leave here together."

A slow smile broke out on Stephen's face, and he ran a hand through Tony's hair. "And what says we can't spend a little time here, together?"

Tony flicked his gaze over Stephen's shoulders.

"There's an angry mob behind us, isn't there."

"Yes there is. Very perceptive, Mr. Wizard."

Stephen muttered that someone from the 13th. century really shouldn't get this amount of enjoyment out of references he knew Tony couldn't understand. They both climbed to their feet, and eyed up what must have been half the town, turned out with anything they could call to hand. 

Tony bowed to the crowd. "Delhaven, I will truly miss you. Take care of my sheep." 

Stephen wrapped his arms around Tony, and they rocketed into the vault of the sky--the rest of their adventure unfurling before them like the glittering moonlight spread across Salisbury Plain.


End file.
